Chapter 15 Requiem for the Faithless #2
I step away, opening the case with steady hands. I feel him watching me, feel the way my spine straightens, the way my shoulders settle.
I am not the girl who once played to soothe. I am the woman who plays to summon. I lift the violin. Tuck it beneath my chin. Raise the bow. Finn goes still behind me.
The first note is low and aching and deliberate, and the chapel holds its breath.
Sound blooms outward, curling through stone and rot and candle smoke, settling into the bones of this place like it’s always been waiting for me.
Finn is behind me—close enough that I can feel his heat, the steady rise and fall of his chest. His hands come to my waist, not to guide, not to claim. Just there. An anchor. A promise.
I draw the bow again. The melody is soft at first. Careful. Almost reverent. My eyes close.
Three years ago, the chapel was full of bodies and whispers. I stood at the front with my violin tucked beneath my chin, silk dress brushing my knees, heart thundering so loud I was certain everyone could hear it.
Finn watched me from the doorway, too tall, too sharp, already carrying violence in his bones. He smiled at me like the world hadn’t taught him better yet.
Another note trembles free, stronger now. Finn’s hands slide up, resting over my ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts—warm, grounding, not demanding. His mouth hovers near my ear. I can feel his breath change as the music deepens.
“Play,” he’d murmured that night. Like it was a prayer. Like it was a dare.
I played for him.
The melody shifts. It darkens. I let it.
I remember the way the candles flickered when the doors slammed open. The way the air changed—sharp, metallic, wrong.
I remember the first gunshot. The scream that followed.
I remember Ciaran stepping in front of me without thinking. Always my brother. Always choosing me.
My fingers don’t falter. Finn’s hands tighten at my waist, not to stop me—never that—but to hold me through it. His forehead presses briefly to my shoulder, like he knows exactly where I am now.
Blood on stone.
Incense choking the air.
Someone shouting Finn’s name like a curse.
The bow digs in harder. The sound swells, filling the chapel until it feels like the walls themselves are vibrating.
This isn’t mourning. This isn’t grief. This is a summoning.
Finn’s hands slide lower, fingers lacing with mine at my hips, steadying me as the music climbs.
His presence is everywhere—behind me, around me, with me—but the sound is mine.
I remember dropping to my knees.
I remember thinking I would never play again.
I lift my chin. The final notes ring out, sharp and deliberate, slicing clean through the silence that follows. When the sound fades, it doesn’t disappear. It waits. Finn’s lips brush my temple. A promise without words.
Someone heard that. Someone always does. And somewhere in the shadows of this ruined chapel, a past mistake is already moving toward us.
I lower the violin slowly. I don’t turn around.
Not yet. I don’t turn when the doors groan open.
I don’t need to. The chapel announces him for me—the scrape of boots on stone, the hitch in the air, the way Finn’s hands go still at my waist. I lift the violin from my shoulder and, very deliberately, unwind the E string.
It sings once as it comes free. Thin. Sharp. Honest.
I wrap it around my fingers. Footsteps stop a few paces behind us.
“Well,” a voice says, too smooth for the wound it carries, “if it isn’t the happy couple.”
I glance down at my hands as I coil the string, neat and patient. There’s a bandage on his hand—I can see it in the reflection of the cracked altar glass when I finally look up. Clean. White. Ridiculous.
He clears his throat, like he’s stepped onto a stage.
“Name’s Padraig Keane,” he says. A pause. A smile I remember carving apart earlier. “Thought it only right I introduce myself proper this time.”
Finn’s arms tighten—not restraining, not protective. Ready. I lift my eyes. And smile back. I tilt my head, eyes dropping pointedly to his hand. The bandage is still there. Fresh. Clean. Wrapped like a lie trying to behave.
“Oh,” I say lightly, as if we’re exchanging pleasantries at Mass. “You came back with that?”
I gesture with the violin string, slow and deliberate. It glints in the candlelight.
“I thought I was very clear at the meeting,” I continue, voice calm as still water. “That was a warning. Not an invitation.”
Padraig’s jaw tightens. His shoulders square like he’s remembered too late that pride is the only thing he’s ever owned.
“Wasn’t clear enough, apparently,” I add, my smile sharpening. “Because here you are. Again.”
Finn doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. His silence is a blade.
Padraig scoffs, heat flashing across his face. “You think stabbing my hand makes you frightening?”
I hum, considering. “No. I think ignoring it makes you an idiot.”
The word lands clean. Precise. Surgical. His face darkens. The charm cracks. Anger leaks through the seams.
“You Malloys always did think you were untouchable,” he snaps. “Marriage must’ve gone to your head.”
I finally turn fully then, meeting his glare without flinching.
“No,” I say softly. “Clarity did. And you’re still struggling with it.”
His breath goes sharp. His hand curls—careful, protective, furious. Finn’s hands slide more firmly to my hips. And Padraig Keane realizes—far too late—that he has misjudged every single thing in this room.
Padraig takes a step closer. Just one. Stone scrapes under his boot, loud in the chapel’s hollow chest. The sound carries.
So does intent. Two more figures peel out of the shadows behind him—men I clock instantly by posture alone.
Shoulders too tight. Hands too near their coats.
Not tourists. Not mourners. Keane dogs, thinking numbers still mean something here.
Finn moves before my pulse can spike. Metal whispers. The gun comes up smooth and inevitable in his hand, barrel steady, eyes colder than the stone saints watching from their broken alcoves. He doesn’t aim wildly. He doesn’t rush. He simply points.
“Stop,” he says.
One word. Belfast sharp. Final. Padraig freezes mid-step, bravado stalling in his throat. His men hesitate—just a fraction too long. The violin string is still warm around my fingers.
Padraig laughs. It’s thin. Brittle. The sound of a man who’s rehearsed this speech in his head for years and finally gets an audience.
“Do ye know how long I’ve waited for this?” he says, pacing now, slow circles on the chapel floor like he owns it. “Two wee heirs playin’ Romeo and Juliet in a ruin. Thought yous were untouchable. Thought love made ye clever.”
Finn doesn’t lower the gun. I don’t move. Padraig keeps talking anyway—because men like him always do.
“Blood traitors,” he sneers, eyes flicking between us. “Both of you. Too soft for your own names. Your families were rotting from the inside, and neither of ye had the stomach to do what needed done.”
He steps closer. Closer.
“I planned it before ye ever kissed in here,” he continues, voice warming to its cruelty. “Before the violin. Before the vows. Two weak links tied together—so I cut the chain.”
My jaw tightens. His men stay planted by the doors, hands near their coats, watching Finn’s gun like it might blink. Padraig stops just short of arm’s length.
“You should’ve died together,” he says quietly. “That night. Chapel floor. Blood everywhere. Would’ve been poetic.”
He smiles at me. And I understand something with terrifying clarity: He thinks this is still a story about him. The violin string digs into my palm. Finn’s finger tightens on the trigger. The chapel waits.
Padraig keeps talking because he thinks words are still his weapon.
“Yer brother,” he sneers, circling again, voice echoing off the stone. “Thought he was some kind of feckin’ hero. Jumpin’ in front of bullets like the saints would clap for him.”
Something cold settles behind my ribs.
I smile anyway.
“Aye?” I say softly. “And how’d that work out for him?”
Finn’s gun doesn’t waver, but I feel the tension roll off him—feel him clock the shift in me. He knows this tone. The polite one. The dangerous one.
Padraig laughs again, louder now. “Worked perfect. He dies. You blame your pretty little lover there. You stab him. Families fracture. Chaos. And while ye were busy tearing each other apart—”
He spreads his hands. “We took land. Routes. Influence. Bit by bit. Malloys bleeding from the inside, none the wiser.”
I tilt my head, encouraging. “Go on.”
His eyes gleam. He thinks he’s winning.
“Your da?” he scoffs. “Useless. Always was. Thought he was playin’ kings when he was just another piece on the board.”
I let out a small, breathy laugh. “Careful, Padraig. You’re sayin’ awful brave things for a man standing in a church with a gun pointed at him.”
He leans closer, teeth bared. “What—ye going to play another tune for me, love? Cry for your brother?”
I take one slow step back. And that’s when I see him. Through the broken side window. A flicker of movement in the dark. A familiar silhouette slipping along the outer wall of the chapel, keeping low, thinking himself clever. My Da. My pulse doesn’t spike. It steadies.
Padraig keeps running his mouth, oblivious. “Truth is, you were never the target,” he says. “Collateral damage. Both of ye. The real prize was power.”
I meet his eyes and smile like I’m enjoying this far too much.
“Aye,” I murmur. “Funny thing about power.”
Finn shifts minutely beside me. Not enough to draw notice. Enough to be ready. I tighten the violin string around my fingers.
“Sometimes,” I say gently, “it waits until everyone who thinks they’ve won is standing in the same place.”
Padraig frowns. Just slightly. Outside, my father edges closer to the rear doors. Inside, Padraig Keane keeps talking. And I let him.